Comments on: Music Synthesizer for the TRS-80 Color Computerhttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/
Oliver CheslerWed, 25 Mar 2015 13:10:23 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: Momohttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/comment-page-1/#comment-3342
Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:02:24 +0000http://www.wiretotheear.com/?p=1720#comment-3342Mnematics Videotext….
Good old time!
There was no downloads for sure, we were just messing around… enjoying the fact we were “online”! There was a IRC gateway at the end, an email feature, and a few thematic hmm newsgroups…
I wish I could find the people I used to hang out with there… Count Zero, Dinosaur Jr, that old Andygee and more…

The frenchie

]]>By: Matthew Reedhttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/comment-page-1/#comment-2929
Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:51:51 +0000http://www.wiretotheear.com/?p=1720#comment-2929I’m glad I’m not the only one to think that some laptop keyboards resemble chiclet keyboards. The “Stereo Music Synthesizer” you mention was the Orchestra-90, which was also available for the TRS-80 Model I, III, and 4. The Orchestra-90 was a fairly simple digital-to-analog converter with some very clever software behind it. Music quality depended on the abilities of the transcriber, but there were some very good music files available. By the way, the Color Computer used the Motorola 6809, not the 6508e.
]]>By: Davidhttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/comment-page-1/#comment-2926
Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:50:23 +0000http://www.wiretotheear.com/?p=1720#comment-2926The Orchestra-90 has two 8 bit DACs and embedded software for writing songs. I seem to recall the built-in demo song is a bit of the William Tell Overture. What you really want to find is the Speech/Sound Cartridge :)
]]>By: Rex Rhinohttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/comment-page-1/#comment-2913
Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:31:09 +0000http://www.wiretotheear.com/?p=1720#comment-2913I used to have one of those devices that my friend gave me in the early 90s when he got rid of his CoCo. If you are looking for the next SID chip like phenomena of retro sound, don’t bother… Beyond nostalgia, there isn’t really much value to this thing.
]]>By: aztrohttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/comment-page-1/#comment-2909
Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:57:04 +0000http://www.wiretotheear.com/?p=1720#comment-2909the oldest synth i remember was the atari, and believe it or not, it came with cubase
]]>By: Chrishttp://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/12/07/music-synthesizer-for-the-trs-80-color-computer/comment-page-1/#comment-2904
Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:48:59 +0000http://www.wiretotheear.com/?p=1720#comment-2904Very interesting find! I did some research and found out that the name of the program is Orchestra, and was released as Orchestra-80, Orchestra-85 and Orchestra-90, with the difference being how many voices they could play and so on. The higher versions being the best ones.

It also seems that this game had some add-on peripheral to allow it to play back the synthesized voices.

I have tried in vain to hear any audio demos of how it sounded, but found a winamp plugin called In-ORCH that lets you play back old Orchestra music files. The problem is I haven’t seen ANY sites that have old music files.